Team Leaders' Resource Library

***For Karl McCracken's personal (mainly triathlon) blog, please visit http://karlmccracken.wordpress.com/
This blog is an alternative way for you to get access to our TeamTips series of articles. TeamTips is a short, fortnightly article that's aimed at TeamLeaders. Each edition covers a subject that's important for Team Leaders' performance - both in technical issues and man-management.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Set-ups and changeovers are important to most of us, but for some industries they’re absolutely critical.

One such ‘industry’ is Formula One Racing. F1 teams are expensive to run (£80M a year - that's around $150M) and rely on sponsorship to survive and the more successful teams demand a higher sponsorship. These days, as cars become more equal and more reliable, races can be won and lost in the pit lane.

In our training programmes and workshops we use the analogy of a Formula One Pit Crew to get across the need for planning, organisation and structure (hence the name of the newsletter).

To focus our writing more towards the stuff we do for business, we've changed the subject for our fortnightly newsletter. The new publication, PitStop is all about reducing machine set-up times. If you work in the print industry, you probably call this make-ready time. Or in metal-bashing (pressing etc), it's changeover time.

Whatever you call it, the fact is that these activities are a major pain. They add no value, and take up time and production capacity, forcing you to make bigger batches than you'd ideally want.

The techniques in PitStop are all about how to reduce these times, boosting capacity, reducing costs, and pushing up profits. You can read the first edition at http://www.sevenrings.co.uk/pitstop/01Introduction.pdf, which talks about the basic concepts of SMED - the technique we use.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

A lot of people thrive on the creative ‘buzz’ of their workplace. Every day represents new challenges, full of opportunities to learn. There’s never a dull moment, and although to an outsider, it could look like disorganised chaos, that’s just because outsiders don’t understand ‘the system’. Things like . . .

The little pile of project files that everyone has on their desk - because they work on several different jobs at once

The Post-Its™ that everyone has around their monitor - as reminders of important information and a means of communicating things like phone messages

The independently managed address books everyone keeps. The business is about client relationships, so individual contacts matter!

But look below the surface at each of these. People can only work on one job at a time, so the pile of files is a distraction from what you should be doing, and a place to lose files other people need. Post-Its™ around the monitor are a visual distraction from what you should be concentrating on, and the fact that they’ve been left there doesn’t mean they’ve been read! Those personal address books mean that when someone moves, you have multiple ‘databases’ to update - its easy to forget one of these, like the billing address!

Dealing with all this means you spend more and more time on things that just don’t add value. Worse still, it means that dealing with all this other stuff could actually get in the way of adding value, meaning that you never actually get to do the things the customer’s paying for.

With a system to take care of all this ‘stuff’, you could be free to concentrate on what matters. Like the things that customers would be willing to pay for if you listed them as separate line items on an invoice.

1. What DO Customers Buy From Us?As a first step, ask yourself, the team, management (and even the customers themselves) what it is that your organisation ‘DOES’. When seen from an outside perspective, why does your organisation exist at all?

2. What Else Do We Do?If you were perfectly efficient, you’d just do what the customers want, and it would take no time at all, and cost almost nothing. So what else happens? What enabling activities need to take place before you can create the value? What accounting & recording activities take place after?

3. See Any Patterns In The ‘Other’ Stuff?Now think about those ‘other’ activities. Does every job seem to need the same type of preparation doing, and the same information analysed afterwards?

4. Are There Patterns In the ‘Value’?Often this is harder to see. But when you take a slightly more ‘wide angle’ view, you’ll see that most jobs which seem unique at the detail level, have the same series of activities performed.

5. Map The PatternsWork with your team to draw process maps of how the patterns flow. Where a step needs a particular set of ‘things’ (either physical, or To-Do items ticked), make sure you list them as enablers.

6. Can You Simplify?Look for duplicate or redundant steps. Can you combine or eliminate activities that don’t add value?

7. Systemising Needn’t Mean ComputersYou can get big benefits from automating even small businesses with software like Mamut (and Jan Grieveson uses this as a cornerstone for business turnaround). But you can also get easy results from things like paper-based checklists, and clear, visual management techniques to improve the ease with which people can operate the workplace.

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing PapersWe publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped scores of individuals and organisations improve their efficiency & effectiveness, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Quality is no-longer optional. When was the last time you bought a bad product? And have you noticed how service-sector companies which aren’t very good at customer service, don’t stay in business for long?

But it didn’t used to be this way. Back in the ‘bad old days’, simply having ‘Made in England / USA / The Empire’ was enough to sell your products to a willing queue of customers. Customers who could buy from you, or from really second-rate alternatives, or just plain go without.

It ain’t like that any more, is it?!

Through painstaking analysis of defects, errors and mistakes, quality has moved forward more than any other measure of companies’ effectiveness.

The problem is that even though quality is taken as a ‘given’ by customers and consumers, many companies just take it for granted. They’ve improved their performance on a rising tide, rather than pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

And then you get a quality issue, just when the CEO attends a seminar on something called Six Sigma. This is a system that was designed in semiconductor plants, where one defect in a million is enough to stop all production. It uses advanced statistics and some great change management methods, all wrapped up in karate-style language (Black / Green Belts etc).

Six Sigma is NOT appropriate for most companies! If they’re not doing the basics to improve quality and control their business processes (this applies to service-sector firms too), Six Sigma is just too much, too fast, and far, far too expensive!

Most companies should use the seven basic quality improvement tools to exhaustion before they go anywhere near Six Sigma. Used properly, they’ll solve 90% of all problems.

And seeing as they’re ‘basic’, once you’ve learnt how to use them, you don’t need expensive consultants to apply them again, and again, and again.

1. HistogramsMake your process’ performance visible. You may know how it performs ‘on average’, but how good (and bad) does it get? Plot on a graph the frequency of different results to see the natural variation inherent in any process. Is the spread of results larger than customers really want? Is the process skewed?

2. Cause & Effect (‘Ishikawa’) DiagramsDraw a horizontal arrow from left to right, pointing at your problem’s description, with four arrows labelled ‘Man’, ‘Machine’, ‘Materials’ and ‘Methods’ pointing diagonally onto the first to make a herringbone. Brainstorm causes of the problem, and attach these to the relevant ‘M’ arrow. Select the most likely ones for further investigation.

3. Scatter DiagramsIf a process’ input and outputs are variables (can be change on a sliding scale, rather than discrete steps), plot one against the other to see if they’re related. Can you change one input and get a predictable (-ish) change in the output?

4. Check SheetsIf you have a range of products / services, and a range of problems, draw a table with the products on the top, and problems down the side. Tally up each problem’s frequency for each product to identify the dominant factor.

5. Pareto DiagramsCount the frequency of each problem type, and plot them on a bar chart, in order from worst to best. Tackle the worst ones first - typically 20% of the problems will be causing 80% of the pain.

6. FlowchartsHaving difficulty understanding what’s going on? Draw a picture of the process’ flow to see how each element is related, and how external factors can influence things.

7. Run ChartsPlot performance over time (hourly, daily, or weekly results), and look for patterns, cycles, and trends. Take corrective action before problems occur.

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Paper on the Seven Tools.We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped scores of individuals and organisations improve their performance through improving their ability to analyse and solve business problems, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0191 2522 335.

And finally . . . . If you want more information on the Seven Tools . . .then for the next two weeks only, a copy of one of our training presentations is available as a special bonus to this article. Check out this special free bonus.

The Seven Tools can look a bit daunting, when all seven are summarised in only a couple of hundred words. So for a limited time only, here's a movie of one of the presentations we use to teach this material in workshops. The Seven Tools section starts about 1/3 of the way through.

It's a clickable Quicktime movie - so it should play just like the presentation. To move to the next slide / animation step, just click on the movie.

SORRY - THIS FILE HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED (IT WAS A LIMITED OFFER ONLY!) FOR A COPY, PLEASE EMAIL KARLatSEVENRINGSdotCOdotUK

You'll need Quicktime to view this movie - available free from Apple for Windows and Mac.

This movie will be available only until 17th October 2006, and is copyrighted by sevenrings. Please feel free to use it within your company, but don't sell, or distribute it outside your organisation!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Interviewed on the Today Programme, their European president seemed far from gung-ho about the company's prospects, saying the cuts in the US were a mirror of what happened on this side of the pond over the last few years. He tried to sound up-beat about the company's re-connection with its market, having right-sized its production capacity and model range to customer demand. Customer demand that's calling for smaller, more economical, less polluting cars like Ford's Ka, Fiesta and Focus. Of course, this is on the day that they're unveiling the new Mondeo . . .

And then there was Honda's announcement that it's going to expand the Swindon plant that produces the Civic. The BBC sites The Sun as its source for this story (so a pinch of salt may be needed), but apparently the expansion will will increase capacity by almost 30%. And manufacturing in the UK (/western Europe) is 'in decline'. Obviously not, when you really do figure out what it is your customers want, and how to deliver just that.

Early on in most client projects, this is a question I put to the management:

“So, why do people come to work here?”

I always have a private bet with myself that someone in the team will give the answer:

“For the money”

And so far, I’ve won the bet every single time.

This of course, isn’t the right answer at all. Don’t get me wrong, we all go to work in general for the money. Without money, it’s pretty hard to keep a roof over your head, pay the bills, and feed the family. And there are probably very few of us who, if we won the lottery (and really won - I mean several million pounds, not three numbers for a tenner!), would keep going to work.

But the question wasn’t about work in general. It was about your specific organisation, and could be re-phrased as:

“Given that unemployment’s low, so most people could find an alternative job that pays more than you do, why do they stay here, and how do you motivate them to get more out of them?”

Now that’s not such a snappy question, but probably one that’s far more useful to ask. Properly motivated people will achieve the impossible.

So if you can figure out what makes each of your team members tick, you’ll be astonished by what they can do, and how little it often costs.

1. Motivation Is Like A LadderEach of us has a set of ‘needs’ arranged in a hierarchy - like the rungs of a ladder. If a ‘need’ is not being met, we cannot progress to the next rung, and are motivated to find a way to have the ‘need’ satisfied. On lower rungs, getting ‘enough’ is a motivator, while nearer the top, the more we get, the more we tend to want.

2. The Bottom Rung - BiologyBasic biological requirements. Air, water, food, and time to rest. The first three are largely taken as given, but what about the last? Work your team too hard, with too many weekends lost to overtime, and I guarantee problems.

3. The Second Rung - Money.You have to pay people ‘enough’. If they can’t afford to live on what you pay, they’ll move on. Having more tends not to motivate. Think of the last time you got a pay rise - for the first few weeks, you felt great. Then you just got used to having the extra money, and stopped noticing it!

4. Employment Benefits & SecurityPeople will leave good jobs if they feel insecure, or are offered benefits that they value more than the money they’ll miss out on. Benefits can include aspects such as workplace safety, so pay attention to this.

5. Friendship Is On The Fourth RungWith enough money, and a safe, secure job, people look for a sense of belonging. Use daily team briefings to emphasise this, and regular social events to cement it.

6. Recognise AchievementWe all need to know our place in the social structure of the fourth rung. So make sure that you positively recognise each team members achievements on a regular basis, and reward them with appropriate levels of responsibility.

7. Creativity At The TopOnce you’ve climbed the first five rungs, you need a continual stream of challenges and opportunities for creative expression. Use regular kaizen activities to provide this, creating a spirit of continuous improvement.

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Paper on team management.We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their performance through improving team motivation, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

A little later than I'd intended, here's the AAC version of the TeamTips Podcast for issue 16. AAC is Apple's file compression format - this file's less than 50% of the size of the MP3 version, so it'll download quicker.

Most of us have more things to do than there are hours in the day. So to cope, we try to do a little of everything that needs to get done . . . and hope that sooner or later one of our tasks will actually get finished, so that it can be crossed off the ‘To-Do’ list.

A little later than I'd intended, here's the MP3 version of the TeamTips Podcast for issue 16.

Most of us have more things to do than there are hours in the day. So to cope, we try to do a little of everything that needs to get done . . . and hope that sooner or later one of our tasks will actually get finished, so that it can be crossed off the ‘To-Do’ list.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Most of us have more things to do than there are hours in the day. So to cope, we try to do a little of everything that needs to get done . . . and hope that sooner or later one of our tasks will actually get finished, so that it can be crossed off the ‘To-Do’ list.

You can recognise that you’re doing this if . . .

On your desk there are several different ‘jobs’ all in different stages of being finished.

On your PC you’ve got several different applications or documents open, relating to different things that need doing.

You have an In-Tray that’s full of stuff you’ve started, but not quite finished yet.

Your ‘To-Do’ list is just that - an unstructured list, with no sense of what should take priority when everything’s due today.

The thing is, that we frequently value action and activity over planning and thinking. So when faced with a stack of things that need doing, most of us just get busy. We try to nudge everything along, and trust to luck that sooner or later something will get finished. In itself, this isn’t such a bad thing - after all, you’re paid to work!

The problem comes when the boss / customer / colleague needs to know when a specific item will be finished. With everything moving along little-by-little, it’s really hard to judge exactly how much of the job has actually been done. Or how much time (and money) you’ve actually spent on it so far.

So its better to spend a little time planning, and you can focus your efforts on the things that matter, one at a time. You’ll be astonished at how quickly things can get done, and also how much easier it is to manage priorities and the unexpected.

1. The One At A Time MindsetRemember the old-style banks? You’d always join what looked like the shortest of the eight queues, only to find yourself behind the man from the penny arcade. Now there’s only one queue but it moves much faster. As a teller becomes available, you’re directed to them.

2. For your own work . . . Look at your ‘To-Do’ list, and prioritise it, using the methods we’ve talked about in previous editions of Team Tips. What’s Important, and what’s Urgent? What doesn’t actually need doing at all, and what can you delegate? Schedule the remaining items into your diary, if at all possible, in time block’s that’ll see them finished.

3. CommunicateTell the people who’re expecting work from you when it’s going to be done.

4. FOCUS the TeamIf the team routinely works on several similar items in parallel, consider how you could re-organise things to focus their efforts on only one job between them.

5. Scalpel! Forceps! Suction!When there just isn’t space for everyone to work on the same job, think about an OPERATING THEATRE. You’ve seen ER / Casualty / Days of Our Lives - usually there are only two people up to their elbows in the work, while the rest of the team supply materials and tools. This is highly effective - how can you copy it?

6. If You Can’t Focus, FLOWIf the team’s work is largely repetitive, can you organise it into a production line? You’ll need to break the job down into equal segments, and link these together. It’s essential that work is passed along as it’s completed - don’t allow batches at any stage, as this’ll slow things down.

7. Takt and DiplomacyIf you’re setting up a production line, work out the TAKT time - the rate every stage must run at to meet your hourly / daily target. Where a stage is too slow, involve the team in figuring out a solution to the problem.

This edition of TeamTips is concerned with the performance-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

1. Read a BookWe recommend “Cellular Manufacturing: One-Piece Flow for Workteams”, by Productivity Press. This is a great book from the ‘shopfloor series’. Very manufacturing oriented, but full of useful techniques for office, or service-sector teams. It’s available from the Sevenrings book shop at www.sevenrings.co.uk/bookstoreandlinks.asp.- just click on the Amazon.co.uk logo to order.

2. Think About Organisation With Either Focus or FlowLook at the incredible focus of a Formula One pit team when they’re doing a tyre change. If you’re in Tyne & Wear, go to Porcelli’s fish & chip shop on the Team Valley. How they cope with the Friday lunch-time rush is a superb example of flow. To see how bad things can be without focus or flow, visit almost any busy pub, and just watch the chaos at the bar!

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their performance through creating focus and flow, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0191 2522 335.

I've just got back from my summer holiday, so we're aiming to record the podcast to accompany this article on Wednesday 6th September.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

This edition of TeamTips is concerned with the performance-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

1. Read a BookWe recommend “The E-Myth Manager”, by Michael Gerber. People think that Gerber’s all about franchising, but he’s not. His core message is to systemise, and E-Myth is without a doubt one of the best business books I’ve ever read.

2. Think About Firm’s Who’ve SystemisedCorporations like McDonalds (never mind the food / ethics - just admire their beautiful system!), Xerox, and Dell. But it’s not just for huge firms - systemising also works for small companies like twentyfirst century media, onebestway, and of course, Sevenrings ;-)

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their performance through systemising, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

1. “But What We Do Can’t Be Systemised.”Few companies have the luxury of Ford’s 1920’s production line, where everything was standardised. At the detail level, everything can seem bespoke. But without exception, if you take just one step back, you’ll see stable, repeatable patterns in what people do. Put it this way, if highly creative firms like onebestway and twenty first century media can systemise, then so can you.

2. Three Functions In A CycleJan Grieveson (old page, but the content's right) says that every business or department does three basic things. Getting the work in (sales, scheduling, planning), doing the work (operations, production, service delivery), and checking if it was worth the effort (accounts, performance measurement). Start with these building blocks.

3. Draw A PictureGet a BIG sheet of paper, and with your team, sketch out the sequence of activities that complete the Three Function Cycle. Break the cycle into broad processes - e.g. Lead generation; proposal writing; making product type A; delivering service type B, etc.

4. Discuss The PictureAdd detail - as much as you can! Things like feedback loops, what information is required at each stage, how decisions are made, how things are communicated.

5. What Can Possibly Go Wrong?Rank each of your broad processes for how frequently you or any other team member has to do something outside of the norm in order to fix a problem. Consider the cost (time and money) and frequency of problems.

6. Start With The Worst.Design a system for the worst process. Document this with a flow diagram, and design any forms that are needed to standardise the information captured / used. Paper forms are fine - just remember to define where they get stored, who uses them, and how long they’re kept.

7. Work Through The Rest . . . and Start AgainDesign systems for each of your processes, making sure you involve your team. Remember, you can’t do everything at once, but over time, you’ll create a system that all but runs itself, dramatically improving productivity.

If you’ve ever had people directly reporting to you, sooner or later, you’ll be struck by the completely bananas things they’ll do!

Things like . . .

Making mistakes in the simplest of tasks

Getting caught making improper use of equipment.

Avoiding responsibility when things go wrong.

Forgetting who ultimately takes responsibility (you).

Paying lip service to making improvements.

Many managers fall into the trap of believing that they can learn better ‘people skills’ to overcome these kinds of problems. And it’s true that a little improvement in interpersonal communication can work wonders. But ultimately, without a system, you’ll spend more and more time sweating those ‘people skills’.

Because the problem is that you can never manage people. They’re just too complex and independent to be controlled by your winning personality alone.

But you CAN manage a system - especially if it’s one that’s designed robustly to deliver exactly what your customers want, AND it takes account of the people who’ll operate it. Do this, and you’ll be able to deliver consistently exceptional value and performance - to your customers, to your employees /staff / team, to your suppliers, to investors, and to yourself.

Develop systems that work, and you’ll be well on your way to a stress-free life. One in which you can can have confidence in your team’s performance, so you can get on with leading.

Monday, August 07, 2006

This is an AAC version of the podcast to accompany our article about finding the time to get around to the things you know you should be doing. Download this version if you use iTunes or an iPod to listen to podcasts on - it's less than half the size of the MP3 version. Just click on 'update podcasts' in your iTunes podcasts folder to download this programme.

This is an MP3 version of the podcast to accompany our article about finding the time to get around to the things you know you should be doing. Download this version if you DON'T use iTunes or an iPod to listen to podcasts on. Just click on this post's title to download the MP3 file.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Why It's ImportantIt’s a fact that being busy is just a part of life. But I’ll bet that your day is also just full of annoying trivialities that don’t add value, when seen through your customers’ eyes.

Things like . . .

Creating reports that no-one understands or reads.

Staffing issues - dealing with people who don’t arrive,

Vague meetings - without a clear purpose or agenda.

Interdepartmental ‘stuff’ - having to play the political game within your organisation

Walking - would a ‘shoe leather allowance’ make a big difference to your pay?!

The problem is that we’re all so good at getting busy. So much so, that we’ll cheerfully fill our time with activity that adds little value. But in doing this, are you avoiding something else?

Too often, high-value activities end up sidelined. This is especially true when those activities are things we’re not comfortable with. The result is that we tend to feel guilty (because after all, you know what you should be doing), AND our performance as an individual / manager / leader is less than it could be.

So to perform to your potential you need to stop being so [darned] busy with trivialities, and focus on the things that matter.

Do this, and you’ll be astonished at the difference in what you, your team, and your organisation can achieve. And that’s got to be worth considering!

Seven Tips1. Just Where Does All The Time Go?

Draw a 2x2 grid on a piece of flipchart paper. Label the vertical axis “Lo/Hi Value”, and the horizontal “Short/Long Time”. Stick it up, and over a couple of weeks, record your activities on it using Post-It™ notes. Get the rest of your team involved by posting their activities too.

2. Analyse

Get together and discuss the activities that you’ve all posted. Remember ‘Value’ is a subjective term, so you may have some interesting differences in opinion.

3. Act: Low Value

For Long Activities, find ways to just stop doing these things! They take up lots of time, but for no real value. Short Activities are probably simple tasks that are below your ‘level’. How can you delegate or outsource these?

4. Act: High Value

Where you want to be is creating high value in small time packets. The more of your activities you have here, the better you’re performing. For Long Activities, systemise the work, to achieve the same result in less time.

5. BUT . . . What's Missing?

Analysing what you DO is great, but what AREN’T you doing? Brainstorm the high-value activities that always seem to get put off.

6. What Get's Scheduled Is What Gets Done

Put those missing activities into your diary. Treat them as FIRM appointments, not to be deleted or re-scheduled

7. Stand Up And Be Counted

Involve others in those missing activities. Make promises, go public, and do everything you can to be held to account for them. This way, you’re far more likely to stick to your intentions to do them.

What NextThis edition of TeamTips is concerned with the performance-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

I’m indebted to Vicky at Accelerate for this great technique. It’s just one of the tools from the Lean Practice programme that we run jointly with her company. You can find out more about this by visiting www.leanpractice.co.uk.

3. Call Sevenrings

We’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their teams’ performance, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

So for an initial no-fee conversation about what you're trying to achieve, call us now. Our phone number is 0191 2522 335.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

There seems to be a bit of trouble with Feedburner & iTunes talking to eachother at the moment, so this post is a second attempt to get the Mr Awkward podcast into the system. To listen to the podcast, just click on this post's title.Karl.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

For many, Team Leadership is the first step on the management ladder. Having people who work for you is a big responsibility. You need to get them performing to show your boss that you can deliver results. And at the same time, your team’ll expect you to take care of them, not to work them too hard, and to deal with all the ‘baggage’ they bring to work from whatever’s going on at home.

This is a tough job - you’re ‘piggy in the middle’ all the time you’re at work. And sooner or later you’ll get a team member who seems to do everything they can to make it harder. We all have bad days at work, where we just want to kick against the system, but this is something more.

You’ve got a team member, who’s a self-appointed member of the Awkward Squad! Examples of the kind of behaviour you might see include:

Frequent arguments with other members of your team, other teams, or managers

Inconsistent work - big variations in work rate and quality, with no apparent reason.

Lack of cooperation, when you need something extra - things like overtime, travelling to fix a problem with a customer, or working with other people.

Aggressively defensive when confronted about problems. They’ll come out fighting, blaming others, making unreasonable accusations that you’re just out to get them. Basically, whatever has happened will never be their fault!

All of this is very stressful - for you, and everyone who comes into contact with Mr Awkward. (Could also be Ms Awkward - this isn’t just a man thing.)

You probably don’t get paid enough to just put up with this, so your job as Team Leader is to try and fix the situation, so that everyone can get on with their jobs!

Seven Tips

1. Stick to The Facts

Mr Awkward probably isn’t behaving rationally, and it’s easy to get pulled into this yourself. So in conversations try to stay detached from any emotion. Stick to the facts, and to help with this, keep brief notes in your day book on what you say. You DO have a day book, don’t you?

2. Be Interested

Is there something behind Mr Awkward’s attitude and behaviour? Problems at home? Being bullied at work? Money problems? Take an interest - ask if there’s anything wrong / can you help / can the company help.

3. Confront 'Bad' Behaviour

‘Awkwardness’ sometimes stems from poor self-esteem. But you can’t be walking on eggshells around this. When Mr Awkward does something ‘bad’, speak to them immediately afterwards about their behaviour. You must criticise the behaviour, and not the person.

4. Get Them To Empathise

Tell Mr Awkward the consequences of his behaviour for the people around him. e.g. “When you argue like that, we feel . . . “; “When you won’t do overtime, we all have to work longer hours to make up for it”.

5. Take Time To Be Positive

Mr Awkward’s behaviour probably means that you don’t really want to talk to him, and only do so when you have to. So he only ever sees you when he’s done something wrong! You need to break this cycle, and go out of your way to find positive reasons to talk to him.

6. Be Constant and Consistent

Take time to talk to Mr Awkward several times a day. If he’s doing a good job, tell him, and if performance is sliding, ask if he needs help.

7. The FINAL Resort.

Sometimes, Mr Awkward just doesn’t want to change, or won’t face up to the need to change. Your absolute last resort is the official Disciplinary procedures. Before making any moves in this direction, discuss it with your manager and the company’s HR department.

What Next?This edition of TeamTips is concerned with the people-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

We’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their teams’ performance, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0191 2522 335, or you can email karlATsevenringsDOTcoDOTuk.

At the end of last week's podcast, John set me the challenge of sorting out the mess in my desk drawer. Well, it certainly needed doing - like many people, it had become a bit of a dumping space for whenever I've had visitors to the office. Just look at all the rubbish I've accumulated!

The first thing was to get all of this out, and figure out what I actually needed to keep. What were the things that I actually use? These items were:

Stapler & remover & spare staples

Paper knife

12" Rule

iPod accessories

Phone case & belt clip

Stamps

External HDD for doing my weekly backups

Everything else should probably either go in the bin, or be taken off to where it should have been in the first place. I then put a clean sheet of paper in the bottom of the drawer as a liner, and laid everything out on it. Once I got a layout that made sense (putting similar items together, and the more frequenlty used items in the lower right quadrant), I drew round everything & labelled the shadows.

Finally, I put everything back in the drawer. The result's much tidier, but more importantly, it's likely to stay that way:

The effort of doing this has reminded me how much inefficiency stemming from disorganisation we put up with.

I now have a clear mental image of where everything goes. Even before I open the drawer, I can see what I want, and where it should be.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

So apparently there's some debate that Shingo was just a bloke who popped in to Toyota every now and then Ohno was busy inventing the Toyota Production System (which went on to become labeled as "Lean").

Does any of this matter? Um, no, not really. The fact is that Shingo's undeniable contribution was in the field of reducing set-up (changeover, makeready, etc) times from literally days to less than nine minutes. And without that, you just can't do the rest of Lean, because you'd have to carry stock, make proposterous economic batch sizes, and generally remain focused on yourself, rather than the customer.

It was this realisation that made us decide that one of the key areas to focus on is set-up time. Following this doggedly to Shingo's target of nine minutes or fewer provides huge paybacks, often out of all proportion with the effort expended.

I'm sure its important to get a historically accurate view of who did what at Toyota 50 years ago. But for most of us, just applying the tools is enough reward!

Friday, July 07, 2006

When you’re trying to change the behaviour of people, you need to use every possible communication tool at your disposal. It’s not enough to tell people what you want them to do. Or even to tell them again . . . and again . . . and again.

Too often, your message is competing with too much other stuff. There are three categories for this:

Noise from other sources, like things going on at home, or elsewhere at work

Comfort in the way we’ve always done things

Fear of new suggestions. The may look like laziness, but it's probably not!

So you need to overcome these barriers and create an environment in which people almost can’t help but go along with the changes you’re trying to make. Often people try putting up signs or notices. Like this one, which every organisation seems to have somewhere:

“Please leave this kitchen area in the same condition as you’d like to find it”

The problem is that this is just more WORDS, and so it’s just as easily filtered out as when you tell people what to do. Put it this way, most people didn’t actually like school, where they were TOLD what to do. So they got very good at filtering out the voice from the front of the class. Now, even if they want to listen and act, their brains simply aren’t tuned in to verbal messages.

To get through to people, you need to bypass their communication filters. That means plugging your message into other parts of their brains - the parts that deal with emotion, images, and imagination.

SEVEN TIPS

1. Get The Team Involved; You Need Their Imagination

You’re a Team Leader, but that doesn’t mean you do all the leadership work yourself. In fact it’s a whole lot easier if you can get the team to do most of the work! So select a small project that everyone can contribute to.

2. Grandpa’s Shed

Use shadow boards to show where each tool should go. Use clips to hold tools in place. Draw round the tools, and colour in the outline. You can easily se where everything should go, and when something’s missing.

3. Leave a Deposit

If you share equipment with other people, set up a token system. Whenever anyone takes a tool from the shadow board, they leave their colour-coded token in its place, so you can instantly see where it is.

4. Missing Manuals

Got a bookshelf that’s shared? No-one putting books back in the right place? Get them all into the right order, and then draw a diagonal line across the spines. That makes it easy to see where each should go, and when one’s missing or out of order.

5. Keep The Aisles Free

Paint the aisles and walkways a different colour to the ‘work’ areas. If you’re in an open-plan office, see if you can move the carpet tiles around to create the same effect. Nothing should ever be stored in the aisles!

6. No Waiting

Aisle ends are always a problem - especially in warehouses. Paint these as ‘box junctions’. No entry to the painted area, unless your exit is clear.

7. Finally . . . The Clean Kitchen!

And how do you get people to clean their coffee cups, rather than just dumping them in the sink? Put up a LARGE photo of how it should look. Label all the features that make this different from how things generally are now(”Cups cleaned & put away”; “Milk back in the fridge”; “Spilt sugar cleaned up”; etc).

WHAT NEXT?This edition of TeamTips is concerned with the people-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

2. Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Paper on team management.We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

3. Call SevenringsWe’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations improve their teams’ performance, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Mike Wroblewski has an interseting posting here about creating shadow boards. It reminded me about how much people underestimate the power of visual management and cues to change behaviour, and then how people often forget that many of the best Lean Tools are distinctly 'Blue Peter' in their application:

A couple of sheets of MDF and some paint will give you more or less instant results that the whole team can contribute to. This is much better than one person huddling in front of a PC to pretty everything up!

This is also why your Value Stream maps and process maps (brown papers) should be hand-made.

Anyway, back to shadow boards. Here are a couple of photos of shadow boards that I think have been really well done - they were in my daughter's nursery class, as a means to get 20 3-4 year-olds to clear up the mess they'd make in their class. You can bet that this saved the nursery teacher literally hours of time, not to mention the monetry value of items which could otherwise easily be lost.

Murder by GroupThink?

Today saw the publication of the enquiry into the murder of Asian prisoner Zahid Mubarek. He was a first time offender, serving a three month sentence for theft in 2000. On the last night of his sentence, he was sharing a cell with a racist psychopath, Robert Stewart. At some point in the night, Stewart beat Mubarek to death with a table leg.

In his 700-page report into the murder and circumstances leading up to it, Mr Justice Keith said,

"It is easy to be wise after the event, but in the summer of 1998 [two years before the murder], Stewart should have stood out from the crowd"

19 individual members of the prison service are named in the report as having failed Mr Mubarek. It is therefore not surprising that Mr Mubarak's family have today described his death as "institutional murder". I like to think that there was no deliberate conspiracy to put a young Asian prisoner in a position where his life was in danger. So on the basis of what I've heard and read today, conclude that this is an example of GroupThink overpowering the common sense of those who had a duty of care to Mr Mubarek.

Will today's report be acted upon, and steps taken to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy?

Monday, June 19, 2006

Strong, cohesive teams deliver better results than any of their individual members could alone. This is true in situations where you have specialists who are good at certain parts of the task, and where you have a group of generalists, each of whom is just doing their best to help the team.

However, teams have to interact with the ‘outside world’. That can mean other parts of the organisation, or elements outside of it - customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

If they don’t have this outside ‘reality check’, there’s a serious risk that the team’ll develop an false image of the ‘world’, their role in it, and their task at hand. Examples from history include:

US failure to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour

Labour’s radical socialist agenda in the 1980’s

The Challenger space shuttle disaster

The capsize and sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise

In each of these examples, the teams involved were convinced that they were doing the right thing. Yet with hindsight, it’s obvious that they were making severe errors of judgement. Even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, the urge to conform to the group’s accepted view prevented individuals from voicing concerns. And even if they had, there was a strong chance that the concerns would have been ignored.

This phenomenon is called GROUPTHINK, and it’s the dark side of effective, cohesive team structures. It is especially prevalent when a team has to perform a complex, unstructured task - like making decisions with information from several sources.

If you can avoid GROUPTHINK in your team, the chances are that you’ll make better decisions, even if those decisions involve taking a painful step into the unknown.Seven Tips To Avoid Groupthink1. Avoid Feeling Invulnerable

Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Yet teams often take extreme risks, acting as if their previous successes will continue to shield them. As Team Leader, avoid this by encouraging members to openly express any doubts.

2. Don’t Assume The Moral High Ground

Teams members can believe that as ‘good’ people, they can’t make ‘bad’ decisions. This is usually part of a desire to be seen to share the leader’s opinions, so as Team Leader, try to voice your opinions last.

3. Avoid Stereotypes

Members can dismiss contrary evidence based on its source (’he’s saying that because he’s weak / stupid / out to get us’), so try to bounce information off another team, and see if they reach the same conclusion as yours.

4. Control Direct Pressure to Confirm

Look out for the use of verbal, non-verbal, or other sanctions against members who voice opinions against the group norm. For important decisions, divide into sub-groups, and see if both reach the same conclusion.

5. Look Out For Silence

Team members can often censor their own opinions if these differ from the way the group seems to be going. Encourage people to discuss the task with trusted outsiders.

6. Has EVERYONE Really Agreed?

In larger groups, the more vocal individuals tend to come to the fore - often in agreement, and effectively drowning out any nay-sayers. Invite trusted outsiders to join the group periodically to restore the balance.

7. Beware of The ‘Thought Police’

Certain team members can take it upon themselves the be the ‘guardians of truth’, screening uncomfortable information from the outside. Appoint a team member as ‘devil’s advocate’ to counter this.

What NextThis edition of TeamTips is concerned with the people-management side of Team Leadership. There are three things you can do if you’re interested in finding out more about this:

Read Our In-Depth Management Briefing Paper on team management.We publish a series of more detailed papers - just visit www.sevenrings.co.uk and click on the ‘free stuff’ button.

Call SevenringsWe’ve helped dozens of individuals and organisations make better use of information, and we’d be happy to talk to you about your particular situation at no initial charge.

We specialise in helping people to get better results by changing the way they work. We can provide training from 1/2 day taster sessions focusing on just one aspect of the Team leader’s role, up to comprehensive programmes over several months.

Our phone number is 0044 191 2522 335, or you can always email: karlATsevenringsDOTcoDOTuk

Finally . . . You can also download this article on groupthink as a one-page pdf, formatted for easy printing. And the podcast version should be available from 28th June:

Monday, June 05, 2006

When you want to improve the results you get, you need to understandhow the various inputs influence your outputs. That way, you can see where to concentrate your effort, and what kind of return you should expect.

This week's TeamTips is all about understanding cause and effect using a technique called Scatter Diagrams. This simplest of graphs is one of the best methods available for improving process results.

It was the main method I used a few years ago to eliminate a quality problem that was costing $100,000 a week.

With that kind of result, its got to be worth the three minutes it takes to read TeamTips. As usual, its packed with practical how-to tips that you can put to work today.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Wouldn't it be great to be able to filter, sort, file and prioritise your emails in seconds rather than minutes? If you could do that, and then allocate time in your schedule to deal with the important messages, imagine how much more productive you'd be.

On average, 30 minutes a day more productive.

The seven simple steps in this week's TeamTips are all about making your email a productivity tool rather than a chore.

It'll take you less than three minutes to read, and is packed with practical how-to steps you can put to work today.

Or if reading's not quite your thing, you can always listen to the audio version of this article - it's in the format of a short discussion about how to sort out email.

Are there never enough minutes in the day? Or do you try to save time by doing two or three things at once? (Ever looked through your email while on hold on the phone?)

But with better management of priorities, things could be very different. Wouldn't it be great to know that although you were busy, at least you were working on the important things.

The seven simple steps in this week's TeamTips will help you free up an hour a day. It'll take less than three minutes to read, and is packed with practical how-to steps that you should be able to put to work today.

Monday, May 08, 2006

In the age of computers, we're often deluged with data. But too often, it's not in a helpful format, and its almost impossible to see patterns that you can draw conclusions from.

When you need to make (or recommend) a decision, you need to be able to 'tell the story'. Fortunately, as the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words".

This week's TeamTips is all about converting data into a picture, using a technique called 'hostograms' With seven easy-to-apply steps that'll take you less than three minutes to read, its packed with practical how-to tips that you should be able to put to work this week.

In most organisations, there are two types of people. Those who do the work that customers value, and those who do the other stuff that goes on in the company - sales, admin, finance, management, etc. The other 'stuff' is usally needed to make sure that the company remains in business to serve its customers - we're not making any judgements here on the relative value of these two types of people!

Team Leaders are the bridge between the two. Uniquely, they're responsible for bothdoing the work and the other stuff that goes on.

This week's Team Tips is all about this 'middle man' role. With seven easy-to-apply steps that'll take you less than three minutes to read, its packed with practical how-to tips that you should be able to put to work this week.

There's a simple technique you can use to separate what's important from what's trivial. Its called the Pareto Chart, and although its been around for a long time. its still one of the best tools going to home in on what's important.

This week's Team Tips is all about using Pareto Charts. With seven easy-to-apply steps that'll take you less than three minutes to read, its packed with practical how-to tips that you should be able to put to work this week.

But at its heart is a simple technique that'll help you collect, try out, and systemise ideas to dramatically improve your teams' results.

This week's TeamTips is all about this method, called PDCA. With seven easy-to-apply stems that'll take you less than three minutes to read, its packed with practical how-to tips that you should be able to put to work this week.

There's a joke that says "meetings are the practical alternative to work". With the average Team Leader attending two meetings a day (half an hour each - five hours a week), its not a very funny joke. Yet too often, people fritter valuable time away in meetings that are almost totally non-productive.

But meetings can be an extremely effective and efficient use of time. They enable rapid communication of important news, for problems to be effectively investigated, and for plans of action to be agreed by all.

This week's TeamTips is all about getting these results, by starting daily briefings in your organisation. It'll take you less than three minutes to read and is packed with practical, how-to tips.

Getting anunderstanding of where to start making changes is often really hard. Since Team LEaders generally work 'at the sharp end', its frequently a challenge to see the wood for the trees and figure out how to stop the need for fire fighting.

Process mapping is an excellent tool for this initial step. Working with the team (or members from across a slection of teams) enables everyone to have their input. More importantly, it separates the people from the problems, allowing things to be seen for what they really are.

This week's TeamTips is all about getting these results, by starting daily briefings in your organisation. It'll take you less than three minutes to read and is packed with practical, how-to tips.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Starting the day with your staff focused on what needs doing means that they'll act as a team. They'll be more productive, make fewer mistakes, and respond faster to unexpected demands from customers. They'll also make a much happier workplace.

It takes less than ten minutes a day to achieve this. And that ten minutes more than pays for itself in terms of the increased productivity it creates.

This week's TeamTips is all about getting these results, by starting daily briefings in your organisation. It'll take you less than three minutes to read and is packed with practical, how-to tips.